Remington R15: Designed With The Hunter In Mind

Remington recently sent me a delightful AR15 style rifle to test, called the R15 that I think is quite neat. The R15 comes from the factory with a camouflage color scheme, 22″ barrel (other lengths available), A2 stock, free floated barrel, and a low capacity 5 round magazine. This rifle is truly a hunter’s AR platform; The rifle should be legal in most states due to being featureless (no evil collapsible stock, threaded barrel, etc.) and should also be hunting legal in many states due to the 5 round capacity (many states limit the number of cartridges in your rifle). Of course, when hunting the name of the game is accuracy so I had to put Remington’s gun to the test with their own ammunition:

Since I only had 20 rounds of this, I shot five groups of four shots each at 100 yards.

For this I mounted my trusty ACOG on the R15 and figured I should be able to pull off a respectable group with 4x magnification. I set the rifle on the shooting bench and got to it:

The R15 is really comfortable to shoot. When it comes to shootability, nothing beats the tried and true A2 stock in my opinion. Even with my long arms and lanky frame I found the R15 to be very comfortable to shoot. The hand guard is nice too and provides a large surface on which to grab.

From a bench with the bipod deployed I pulled off consistent and decent groups.

Best:

Worst:

Out of the 5 groups I averaged 1.34″ with the Remington soft pointed ammo. With more magnification I know I could have squeezed more out of her, but I think even with a 4x optic and some off the shelf ammo I did okay. The rifle is incredibly easy to shoot and it just begs to be put to the test with a 10x and some hand loads!

After the accuracy test, I decided to just set up some gongs to see how hot the hand guard got or if accuracy would suffer after the barrel warmed up. For this I used regular FMJ ammo, of which I have plenty:

The Remington R15 effortlessly rang the steel again and again and I had an absolute blast shooting with this gun. I must have shot around 200 rounds in all.

Now I just can’t get my hands on a semi-auto rifle without really trying to see what it can do so I loaded a 30 rounder and did a gratuitous mag dump as fast as I could pull the trigger, and it ran like a Swiss watch:

Nailing my cameraman with brass. Sorry Chris!

This was great fun, and I am sure I could use this at a carbine competition just as well as I could any of my tacticool guns.

Now here is where I need to get on my soapbox for a second. Many may find the camo a little unappealing. In fact both of my friends who saw the rifle at my shop chuckled at me and asked if it came with the soundtrack from Deliverance. However, the R15 in my opinion helps bridge the gap between the older traditionalist crowd and the guys who like modern sporting rifles (like myself). The R15 looks a lot less scary than an M4 type gun, and if would not be out of place on the gun rack at a hunting shop. This rifle may persuade some people who were previously opposed to black guns to get one, and the more people who realize these have the same capabilities as any other firearm in that caliber, the better! Anyways, off my soapbox and on to my bullet points:

This is designed for hunting varmints, and most varmint ammo will be either 45 or 55 grain.

As for featureless, It still has a pistol grip which is usually on the list of features. It would pass the 2 feature test that was put in place with the 94 AWB (and that I think a few states might still use) but It wouldn’t pass the single feature test that the gun grabbers want now because of the grip.

I am also surprised you guys are just getting around to reviewing this, it has been out for 5 years.

Remington seems to be a little weird the way they do things. They will just kind of randomly tell Phil that he is getting a rifle that has been out for a while. I recently reviewed a versa Max shotgun too, however I like it because it lets me test out more guns regardless of how long it has been out 🙂
As for my featureless comment, I guess my mind is still stuck in the days of the old two feature test. Yes, the pistol grip would disqualify it in the extremely strict states.

J.T.

“Remington seems to be a little weird the way they do things. ”

They haven’t been right in the head since Cerberus bought them in 2007

We don’t only review brand new guns. We wouldn’t have many to review if we did. A print publication can do that since they only come out with a new issue every month. We post several every day.
That’s kinda like saying you’re just now reviewing a 1911 it’s been out over 100 years.

Tom

I understand reviewing other firearms beside brand new releases. But then get deep into it. Test more ammo, put a optic on it that pushes it to the limits, or take it hunting. Also, mention it has been out for # of years otherwise you look disconnected.

Marlin

I’m sure that this was designed for hunting… when bushmaster designed it and named it the varminter. If you want a 20″ barrel you should get the predator, it has a 1 in 8 twist as well. It doesn’t come with that fancy camo, but, you can buy the upper (bc included) for about $550.
tl;dr: this is not news.

allannon

1.3-1.6 MOA is “accurate”? That’s a bit worse than my M4gery turns out with Core Express.

It seems a decent M4 is lighter, shorter, and generally handier; it shoots as well; has an adjustable length of pull which can go from A2 length to short enough for my neices; and even during the initial post-Obama panic was cheaper.

First we need to test various brands and types of ammunition to find the one that works best in this rifle. I commented earlier that the writers supply their own ammunition most of the time which can prevent us finding that perfect round. I’m sure this rifle is capable of better groups with the right handload or a weight it likes.

allannon

You can’t be sure of such; the listed accuracy could well the the best it can manage.

Listing the accuracy is good reporting, but making assumptions isn’t; that could be the best which that rifle can manage, or if tuning to the rifle helps it could well be a minimal improvement.

Let me ask you to look at it this way: you read Sam’s writeup, assume that you can find a good round, drop $1k on such a rifle, and never exceed 1.25 or so MOA. How would you feel about the assumption that better accuracy can be found?

I have mine down to .75MOA, which is great for hunting. Generally, 1MOA is acceptable for hunting purposes. As Phil said, it takes time to find a round that shoots well. Most of us buy off the shelf ammo to test with so we may not get to the full potential of the rifle. Really just depends on barrel harmonics. What works for me, might not work for the next guy.

allannon

Giving accuracy with a particular round is fine; just saying that an unsupported assumption really shouldn’t be put in the positives column.

But taking a rifle off the shelf, throwing some factory ammo through it and getting 1.3MOA with a 4x at 100yds lends credence to said rifle being pretty accurate out of the box. That is all I was trying to say.

Bob

This was not built for anything it seems like. It’s no a varmint gun because you’re not going to shoot varmints with a gun that can only hit 1.2 MOA. And generally you’re not going to hunt deer or larger animals with a lightweight bullet. They should have added a heavier barrel and made it 1:8 and then it would have been good for everything. I hate 1:9 twist barrels

I’d really like to see this rifle tested with more of a range of ammunition – The Remington “Power-Lokt” has never impressed me. Looking at what we have on offer here, the only thing this gun has over the CZ 527 I bought back in 2002 is that you can make quick follow-up shots, which you’ll need when your average group is just under an inch and a half.

Considering my CZ 527 cost around half as much, is legal everywhere, and consistently groups right around 1/2 to 3/4″ with 50-grain v-max handloads (or the hornady “superformance” 40-grain factory stuff), I find the advantages lacking.

When you said that “The rifle is incredibly easy to shoot and it just begs to be put to the test with a 10x and some hand loads!”, you may have been more right than you know. I don’t read a gun review to find out how well someone else shoots a gun – I read it to find out how well the gun shoots. Most people, myself included, never print groups as good as what the rifle could produce on its own. When I get a flier, I want to be more than reasonably sure that it was my fault, and not the gun’s. For this, I need to eliminate as many variables as possible at the range, so that I can be confident in my equipment in the field. Five four-shot groups with one kind of ammunition and a 4x scope doesn’t give me enough information to even think about making a purchase.

As a final note, one thing that I have found over the years is that shooting from a bi-pod that is resting on a hard, flat surface can cause a bit of “bounce”, and open up your groups. When I shoot groups off a bi-pod, I do it from the ground. If I have to rest on a hard, flat surface, I generally shoot from a bag instead.

I actually own one of these and agree 100% with your review of them. While it has some upgrades they are all to things that you mention as “the bad.” I use mine for coyote hunting out to about 400yds with great success, and have finally been able to build up an accurate load that is getting ~.75MOA.

I have had the barrel threaded, and a muzzle brake put on the rifle in the event that I need a followup shot, my rifle now stays put a lot better. I have upgraded the trigger and repainted the entire rifle with rattle can camo, the factory camo is way to shiny, and just like ACU, blends to nothing. I also put a palm shelf grip on it and replaced the A2 style stock with a carbine buffer and Magpul ACS-L stock to help make it a little smaller. With that 24″ barrel, and a full stock the thing gets a little unwieldy to carry around all day.

Most recently I have added a 12.5″ keymod rail system to lighten the forend. To top it all off I have a Vortex Crossfire II 4-12×40 with a 4″ sunshade to help hide scope glint.

Below is my R15 for hunting. Very good rifle for kicking around the woods/fields for coyotes, and this rifle taken its share of them. Since the picture though, I have done some more work to the rifle.

Sure I am into the rifle for a few hundred dollars more than retail, but really its a tool for hunting and was a great platform to start modifying on to get where I wanted to be. All in all, I spend about 6mo out of the year chasing coyotes for various farmers, land owners and local businesses. I wanted a rifle I could kick around, but still rely on to make the shot.

Great review Alex!

Brandon

Does anyone know the length of the fore end on the 24 inch barrel remington r15 vtr? I want to put a quad rail on one.